quote=Todd W]
Although we do have CERT in my area, my particular city runs a CEPA program--Community Emergency Preparedness Academy. The actual curriculum is very similar between the two, but there is no official team to join as with CERT. You're just trained to be ready to help yourself and your neighbors. [/quote]

I live in a city that does CEPA - it has the advantage of not requiring much leadership to maintain, just open classes on a schedule; and keeping the trained CERTS out of the way of the local first responders, who sometimes find them to be a pain in the ass. I've seen self-responders show up at fires and local disasters and self-deploy, and I agree some of them can be a pain, but if you have a trained CERT team 1. they know not to try to self-respond, or they'll quickly get dropped and 2. they can be available for more stuff, whether its staffing a first aid station at a community event or directing traffic. Plus as you reach a critical mass of trained CERTS, some interesting possibilities emerge where you can actually integrate them into the community response plan. Also the lack of organization and leadership has a couple pitfalls: I took the CEPA introduction course from my city, and asked how we could connect with others in the area who have taken CEPA. The answer was we can't, they don't provide a list of other CEPA trainees, so you won't actually know who has trained in your neighborhood until an event occurs. Also, lacking organization means you lack follow up training oppportunities, the chance to practice what you learn in class and internalize it better. And last, if I hadn't joined a CERT team in an nearby city instead of my own, I wouldn't have found an even better opportunity with the Red Cross, basically putting CERTish skills to use on a much more regular basis.